Hara Takashi
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Hara Takashi |
Hara Takashi (原敬
February 91856"
November 41921) was a
Japanese
politician and the 19th
Prime Minister of Japan from
September 291918 to
November 41921. He was also called
Hara Kei informally. He was the first
commoner appointed to the office of prime minister of Japan. His catch phrase as a politician was "commoner and minister" (平民宰相
heimin saisho).
He was born in a village of the feudal
Nanbu domain (now
Iwate Prefecture). He was the son of a
samurai class family which had resisted the
Meiji Restoration and the establishment of the very government which Hara himself would one day lead. Due to his association with a former enemy clan of the new Imperial Government, which was dominated by the feudal clans of
Choshu and
Satsuma, Hara for long remained an outsider in the world of politics.
He left home at the age of 15 and went to
Tokyo by boat. He failed the entrance examination of the prestigious Naval Academy (海軍兵学校
kaigunhei gakkou), and instead joined the Marin Seminary, a French-established, free religious school. It was here that he learned to speak French fluently. Soon after that he joined the law school of the Ministry of Justice.
At the age of 17 he was baptized, and even though it is often speculated that he became
Christian for personal gain at the time, he remained a Christian in public life until the day he died. At the age of 19, Hara broke away from his family's samurai class (士族
shizoku) and chose instead the classification of commoner (平民
heimin). At various times later in his political career, offers were made to raise his rank, but Hara denied them every time on the basis that it would alienate himself from the common men and limit his ability to gain entrance to the House of Representatives (衆議院
shugiin).
In 1882, Hara took a position in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Under the auspices of
Mutsu Munemitsu (1844"1897), Hara served as vice-minister of foreign affairs and as ambassador to
Korea. He then left the Foreign Ministry to work as a
journalist for several years. He became the manager of a newspaper company, the
Osaka Mainichi Simbun, but in 1900, he returned to politics and joined the new-founded party
Rikken Seiyukai(立憲"友会) that was founded by
Ito Hirobumi. Hara became the first secretary-general of the party.
He ran successfully for the lower house and served as home minister in several cabinets between 1906 and 1913. Hara is best known for his later service as Prime Minister, but he was also able to effect many reforms from his cabinet positions. He would systematically fire existing heads of local governments in every capacity from Governor down to High School Principal. Any public employee fell under his power, and he would always replace them with people in whom he saw real ability instead of as favors. He also made a point of developing the Japanese national infrastructure and created systems in which people with talent could rise to the top regardless of their background or rank. Many of these systems still exist in some form today.
In
1914, after heated debate, he was appointed the president of the
Seiyukai to replace the outgoing and aging leader
Saionji Kinmochi. This period is often called
Taisho democracy, which represented the move away from Japan's traditional system of government and toward something that could be called a real
democracy. Under Hara's leadership, the
Seiyukai got supporters steadily and in
1917, it became the largest party in the Diet.
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Plaque in Tokyo Station commemorating Hara's assassination |
In
1918,
Terauchi Masatake fell from popularity because of the
rice riots and resigned. Hara was appointed by the prime minister as his successor on
September 281918. It was the first party government in Japan and the first cabinet headed by a commoner.
Hara held strong views about his opponents, the military powers and politicians who originated from the
Kagoshima and
Yamaguchi Prefectures, i.e. the former
Satsuma and
Choshu clans. In
1921, he was assassinated (stabbed) by a right-wing military officer at
Tokyo Station.
As opposed to many of his contemporaries, Hara lived a relatively simple lifestyle in a rented home near Shiba Park in downtown Tokyo. In his will, he left very few assets behind but among these was his diary. He wrote "After a period of some years my diary must be made public. It is the most valuable of all my possessions, so it must be protected." According to the will it was made public and what came to be called the Hara Diary (原日記
hara nikki) turned out to be one of the most valuable first hand accounts of the political scene in that era. Most of his daily activities are written along with opinions and thoughts regarding the political figures of the time. The diary itself is thousands of pages long but reveals, in depth, a broad range of information previously unknown to historians.
* Najita, Tetsuo:
Hara Kei in the Politics of Compromise 1905-1915. Harvard Univ. Press, 1967.
* Olson, L. A.:
Hara Kei " A Political Biography. Ph.D.diss. Harvard University, 1954.
* Duus, Peter: Party
Rivalry and Political Change in Taisho Japan. Cambridge/Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968.
*
Hara Kei Memorial Hall
